"Put jelly on your shoulder": Lyric double-takes

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There's a great bit in a David Berman poem where the speaker talks about a friend who grew up in Braintree, Massachusetts but had never pictured a brain snagged in a tree. I thought of this tonight as I was listening to Velvet Underground's 'Some Kinda Love': when the line 'Put jelly on your shoulder' came up, I realized that, until that moment, despite having listened to the song at least 50 times, I had never imagined a person putting jelly on their shoulder and/or considered just what that might entail. So, my question has two parts, a general and a specific. First, does this sort of thing happen to anyone else, a lyric double-take involving a recognition of a failure of imagination? Second, and more burningly, does anyone have the faintest about the the application of jelly to one's shoulder? Is this some sort of unspeakable depravity? Hard evidence would be best, but smutty speculation is encouraged.

― Martin Swope, Thursday, 4 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Lou was both a great recycler of lyrics and obv. obsessed with jelly - there's these lines from 'She's My Best Friend' - "Mulberry Jane/She made jam when she came/Somebody cut off her feet/Now jelly rolls in the street".

And it took me ages to accept that Arthur Lee really did sing "Oh the snot has caked against my pants/it has turned into crystal" on 'Forever Changes'.

― Andrew L, Thursday, 4 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

what, you've never put jelly on your shoulders - now that's weird.

― Geoff, Thursday, 4 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

And it took me ages to accept that Arthur Lee really did sing "Oh the snot has caked against my pants/it has turned into crystal" on 'Forever Changes'. Crystal? ah! I always thought he said "crust-o!" Makes much more sense now....sort of..

― Emily, Thursday, 4 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Lou wrote some great lyrics, yes, but far more bad ones.

― Sean, Thursday, 4 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

If it's anything like Beyonce's jelly, I don't think I'd mind putting some on my shoulder at all.

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 4 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

isn't jelly/jelly roll an old southern euphamism for pudendum?

― fritz, Thursday, 4 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Hmmm, so maybe the consensus is that it's just a crap tossed-off lyric, but damn it, I can't let it go! After thinking about it today, I've developed the working theory that the jelly is some kind of rugburn preventative because of the following line, 'lie down on the carpet.' But there is still the vexing issue of the non-plurality of 'shoulder.' Why put jelly on just one shoulder and not the other? What kind of position would that be, exactly? Perhaps the recipient of Lou's suggestion has a less-than-full complement of limbs? The mind reels.

― Martin Swope, Thursday, 4 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Ok. I gotta know. Martin Swope as in Mission Of Burma? That you?

― Sterling Clover, Friday, 5 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

No, sorry. He's the source but it's just a nom de plume; I was sick of my name, liked his, and so nicked it. It's sufficiently obscure to go unremarked on in most quarters, but I should know better than to think it would go undetected round these parts. My real name is the same as that of a semi well-known writer and exceedingly close to that of a very well-known writer, so I felt the urge to establish a separate identity for my writing. So there you have it. And "Swope" is just so pleasing on the lingual palate.

― Martin Swope, Friday, 5 October 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

one month passes...

As a child at school, I had to sing "dance, dance wherever you may be, for I am the lord of the dance settee". I had visions of Jesus on a big vinyl sofa. (it should be "said he", of course). Personally I double-take almost every time I see a Lou Reed lyric. He was much more of an absurdist than is generally realised.

― anthonyberet, Tuesday, 6 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Wow talk about synchronicity. Snot caking against pants and turning into crystal is something this feller decided to notice and post today, too.

― Nude Spock, Tuesday, 6 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

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